note: light lgbt in this chapter.

I stared down at the Styrofoam cup in my shaking hand. The fifth coffee that day; it almost felt like cocaine, only there was something missing.

"Where's the happy?" I asked, swirling the black drink around in the cup. The door shut quietly. Georgia walked in from her extra Bible class. Like anyone needed extra Bible classes. I had been told about the guy in the whale enough times to no longer give a shit. How did people even believe that stuff anyway? It was ridiculous.

Georgia sat on the side of my bed and sighed. I stared at her. Over the past while, she had been slowly getting used to me. I guessed rehab was good for her; she was slowly breaking out of the terrified state I had met her in, but she was nowhere near normal person material.

I set my coffee on the nightstand and crawled behind her, placing my hands on her shoulders. Georgia tensed up, and I came around to sit next to her, my arm over her shoulders.

"You alright?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, turning her head to look at me. "I just don't know what I'm going to do after I get out of here."

"Do you have a family to go back to?"

I fidgeted, crossing one leg over the other and arching my back. All the caffeine left me jittery, but it was the closest thing I could get to drugs. Hell, I couldn't even get sex in rehab, and that bothered me more than not having coke. The last time I had went for a week and a half without a good fuck had probably been when I was a virgin. Or maybe when I was pregnant with Forrest.

I stared down at the carpet between my feet. My eyes stung, an uncomfortable lump forming in my throat at the thought of the smiling toddler in the picture on my nightstand.

"No," Georgia finally replied. I tightened my arm around her shoulders, bringing her frail body to me.

"Me either."

Georgia took a deep breath.

"What did you do before all this, Dakota?"

"I was a whore with my mom," I said. "I just bought a new car before they --" I cut myself off. Georgia wouldn't be able to handle knowing that I had killed someone. "Uh, before I got put here."

Georgia's pale eyes were staring far away. Where was she?

"I was a prostitute too," she said, her voice turning into a low monotone. Why was she suddenly so sad? She had ran out of the room as a happy ball of energy earlier, when her Bible class was scheduled to start. Did she learn something that shattered her faith inside the stupid brown leather book she carried everywhere with her?

It hurt to see her so upset. She had been carrying what little bit of happiness I had in this godforsaken place, and suddenly, something had crushed it. I took my arm off her shoulders and laid down on the bed, all of the energy from the coffee suddenly lost from Georgia's mood.

"They hurt me," she said, laying down next to me. "Beat me and kicked me, and they hardly ever gave me any of the money they owed. But I kept doing it, and d-doing it because I-I..." She trailed off, sobbing. Her shaking body made the bed squeak. After a second, her sobs were turning into bone-chilling wailing. Georgia raised her hands to her mouth, evidently trying to quiet the awful sounds coming from her. My body froze up from her crying. She sounded like her soul was being torn out of her body, and I felt like whatever soul I had left was following hers.

She was loud. The nurses would probably hear her, and shoot her up with Xanax or something. The thought of Georgia being restrained while they stuck a giant, silver needle into her arm... I shivered. Helplessness set in like a giant barbell laying on my chest.

I forced myself to roll onto my side, and I propped myself up on my elbow. Georgia's eyes were shut tight, tears rolling down her face and her hands covering her mouth. She needed to be quiet, so she didn't get a shot of Xanax and a ticket to the asylum.

Do they do that? I didn't want to find out, and I did the only thing I could think to do. I took her clammy hands off of her mouth and kissed her.

She stopped wailing, and her eyes opened -- she was confused, I could tell just by the look she gave me. After an uncomfortable moment, her breathing seemed to calm down some and I moved off of her.

"Sorry," I said, wiping Georgia's spit off my lips. "I didn't, uh, want them to hear you and shoot you up with something?"

Georgia gave me a look, and wiped the tears off of her face with the back of her wrist. She was still crying, but she seemed too confused to sob.

"I don't like girls, I swear!" I said, holding my hands up, palms out, hoping that she would get the message.

I had fucked girls before, it was just part of the job, but I never really got anything from it. Guys were much nicer to look at, and most of them were more pleasurable to fuck than girls. Those BDSM guys were the only kind of men I'd avoid to the point of playing lesbian.

Georgia got up and walked to her bed. I rolled over to my nightstand and grabbed my coffee. I finished off the gross drink, grabbed a cigarette and lighter off my nightstand, and left the room. A nurse was standing outside with one eyebrow raised.

"I thought I heard screaming," she said.

"It's okay now," I told her, throwing the Styrofoam coffee cup in the trash can behind her. "I'm going out for a smoke."

I waved my cigarette in front of her and walked off to the door.

Raymond stared at me with his too-big brown eyes. Georgia was jabbering about some Jesus bullshit while Raymond and I had a staring contest. The fat, bald man did not like me, I could tell just by how he glared at me. His bushy eyebrows were too close together, and his eyes just seemed too dark.

Raymond held up a finger, and Georgia stopped mid-sentence.

"Step four is looking deep into yourself and finding your morals and your wrongdoings," he said. "I need you two to look deep inside, and pull out all those good and bad things about yourselves. Write it down somewhere, and turn it into me when you have it finished." Georgia nodded furiously.

"Ray, I already can sum up my morals for you," I said. "Sex, drugs and parties. Blowjobs in cars are unpleasant, but necess--"

"Write. It. Down."

"Of course, Ray." A nasty grin split my face and I began walking away from them. Georgia's tiny, quick footsteps followed me down the puke green hallway. I stopped at the end of the hall, and waited for her to catch up. She walked in front of me, turned around, and looked me up and down.

Since she had broke down, Georgia had acted like nothing at all had happened, and I was totally a-okay with that. Things had went back to normal, but then Raymond, our "personal guide", had come around and fucked things up. Not only did we have to deal with Blondie every Sunday and every meal, but Raymond was going to be breathing down our necks for the following few weeks until we were out of the damn place.

"Dakota," Georgia said, holding a Bible close to her chest and fidgeting. "About Monday..." She bit her lip.

"What about it?"

"Uhm..." She looked away from me and began to tremble. I kept myself from sighing. Her terrified mouse personality was endearing sometimes, but it was usually just annoying.

Georgia squeaked and shuffled down the hallway two doorways down, evidently going back to our room. I glanced around the common room -- a couple blonde meth-heads with their hair falling out, some crazy-eyed gray-haired guy -- and decided to head back to our room as well. Georgia was the only person who was remotely close to my age in this hellhole; the second-closest was some twenty-something year-old brunette bitch who was strung out on heroin. Anyone was more bearable than Mary-Beth, Missus I-am-so-happy-to-be-off-drugs.

I knocked on our door before I entered, just so Georgia wouldn't jump out of her skin when I came inside. I walked over to my bed and sat down, looking at her. She was reading a magazine.

"What was it you were going to say?" I asked her, reaching for the cup of stale coffee on the nightstand.

Georgia looked up and bit her lip again. I took a sip of the lukewarm coffee and scrunched my face up. Coffee wasn't even good warm, and it was way worse when it was cold.

"Well, uhm, I know you're not into girls, but, uhm," Georgia said, sputtering and stuttering over every word. "Could we maybe, y'know?" She gave me the weakest smile I had ever seen on her face.

I raised an eyebrow, "I don't know. Elaborate?"

Georgia made a sexual gesture with her fingers, and I almost spit out my coffee. Instead, I shook my head at her until I figured out how to swallow again.

"I thought you didn't even like sex?" I asked her, clutching the Styrofoam cup so hard that a piece of it cracked into the coffee.

"Not with guys," her voice was tiny. "All they ever did was hurt me, even the ones that didn't try to. Girls, uh, never... And, uhm, I actually, uh, liked it with... a girl?"

Oh God, she's addicted to lesbian sex.

"You did a lot of girls, didn't you?" She nodded. "Did you even fuck a guy in the past few months?" She shook her head.

That explained how she had money for meth. If the guys rarely paid her, then it would make sense that she had moved on to girls, and finding lesbians in Vegas wasn't really that hard. I still didn't understand why she was so timid, especially as a prostitute. Something had to have happened.

"Why are you so afraid of, well, everything?" I asked her before I could talk myself out of it. Georgia drew her eyebrows together and frowned. Her eyes began to scrunch up, like she was about to begin crying again.

"I was kidnapped," she said simply before pulling the comforter of her bed around her. She fell into her pillow and started to silently cry.

I wanted to give her a hug, but that would probably be awkward. I didn't know how to act around lesbians. Could I just hug Georgia and trust her not to try to make out with me? She never had tried before, but since I had kissed her and she suddenly came out to me? What the hell?

The Styrofoam cup broke in half and fell to the floor. I jumped up immediately, glad that the cup was mostly empty. I placed the busted-out bottom of the cup on a nightstand and walked over to Georgia's bed. I moved the comforter off her head and stroked her hair.

"I'm sorry for asking."

She sniffled and nodded.

"About, uhm, y'know," I said. "Maybe?" Hopefully not?

Georgia grinned through her tears, and wrapped her hands around my neck in an awkward hug. My body stiffened, and my legs ached to run. Run far, far away from Georgia and Raymond and rehab, right into the arms of Vegas with its cocaine and parties and straight sex.

God, get me out of here.

yo, it's been awhile. sorry about that; school is a bitch. uhm, the story's taking a slightly unexpected turn, but i think i like the revised storyline over the original one. shorter, sweeter, and hopefully more interesting!